Renegades of the Underworld
by Heart of a Dixon
Summary: College orphan Koru Davis is saved from a vampire by Blade the daywalker one night, exposing her to the secret world she never knew existed. How does she cope with this knowledge? By teaming up with Blade, Whistler, Scud, and the Bloodpack to invesitgate the uprising of a new breed of vampire. Along the way, Scud begins to question this whole familiar thing...
1. Through The Park

The streets were silent, my footsteps slapping loudly enough on the concrete sidewalk to make me cringe. It was Friday and I had just gotten out of my English night class. No one was out at this time of night, other than the few students I passed who also had lectures and classes to attend. I usually took the short route home through the parking lot and across the mess hall to get to my dorm, but tonight I had decided to try something different by taking the long, scenic route through the park.

I breathed deeply and stared out across the soccor field to my right. I had been so focused on watching the goal net blowing in the slight breeze that I hadn't seen the tall man I had bumped into. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said, glancing up at him.

He turned too quickly for me to catch sight of his face, but he gave a low chuckle.

Rather than asking him what the hell he was laughing at, I stepped around him and continued walking, shaking off the eery chills that stranger had given me. I was almost successful in distracting myself from the man when I became concious of a pair of footsteps behind mine a few minutes later.

I faltered in my walking, but refused to turn around. Was it that man? What did he want? I forced myself to continue heading home, then glanced nonchalantly behind me, faking a look at the library to my left. There was nothing there.

_You're just being paranoid! Just keep going and don't pay attention to it. _I breathed a quiet sigh of relief after firmly convincing myself I was imagining things.

I was trailing my hand along the top of the waist-high wall encircling the chemistry labs when I walked directly into someone else. "I'm sorry, this seems to be happening a lot to me tonight and-" the words ceased to come out of my mouth as the identity of the man in front of me sunk in.

I hadn't seen his face last time, but I was sure this was the same man I had run into earlier. He had the same thick-set shoulders, hooded jacket, and abnormal height. His face was pale, eyes a strange golden brown color, not quite the same as my own hazel eyes.

I staggered backward a step. The sharp features of this man exuded something almost predatory.

He grinned and moved forward, gripping my arm harshly. I let loose a scream and hit out at him as he lowered his face to my neck. I assumed he was trying to rape me, but when he sniffed delicately, then licked out hungrily at the skin of my throat, I felt almost completely certain he was going to bite me.

I threw myself at him with everything I had, kicking, slapping, punching, clawing, but nothing helped. His impossibly strong hands flexed and effectively immobilized me. Just as his teeth were beginning to brush the top layer of my skin, he was yanked away, flying backward a few feet and landing on his back.

Without his hardened grip on me, I fell back on the concrete, sitting up. What in the hell had just happened? I cast around frantically. Had something even worse come to take out the original threat?

Out of the darkness came a man of African descent, dark skin and black leather trenchcoat helping him to blend into the night. And it was no wonder he would want to travel inconspicuously; he had a minimum of 8 pounds of various weaponry strapped to him by leather belts, holsters, and harnesses. Black sunglasses concealed his eyes and tattoos formed a pattern on the lower half of the back of his head.

His combat boots gave a _thud-crunch _and the leather of his coat scraped against the sidewalk as he walked nonchalantly toward the man on his back.

I stared, horrified, as he unhesitatingly ripped a sword from his back and leveled the blade at the man's throat. Though I was mortified and confused and disgusted, I couldn't look away as he decapitated my attacker.

I don't remember it clearly (my vision and conciousness were beginning to waver), but I must've made some noise; the dark man's attention was brought to me immediately. He straightened up, put his weapon away, and began walking in my direction.

I was too shocked to move and too weak with dizziness besides, though I wanted to scamper backwards in what I knew would be a futile attempt to escape. I thought, for a moment, he might walk past me, but he dropped into a crouch next to me.

Instead of cringing away like my instincts were telling me to, my eyes widened in fright. He put a finger to his lips and shushed me. That was the last thing I remember before I passed out on the side of a darkened road with a menacing stranger.


	2. The Girl

SCUD'S POV:

I set the torch to the metal again, watching through the thick welding hood that changed the sparks from bright blue to venomous green. When the whirring of the arc welder shut off, I was able to hear the sound of footsteps.

"That you, B?" I called, not looking up from the misshapen hunk of metal in front of me.

"Yes," his voice, low and deep, was closer than I had thought, scaring me enough to drop the welding stick. He walked past, a large form in his arms.

"The hell is that?" I asked, ripping off my gloves and throwing them down as I raced after Blade.

Laying across his arms was an unconcious young woman, with long black hair and a pale complexion. She looked frustrated, even in sleep, as though she were trying to think through something and just couldn't. Her freckled nose was scrunched up, drawing her full lips into a frown.

Deeper into the warehouse, Blade stopped in front of one of the work tables we had set up, with various wires and metal scraps cluttering the surface. "Clear the table," Blade demanded. He hadn't said it harshly, but it was obviously an order.

I stepped forward and swept my arm across the table, knocking everything to the ground.

He laid her gently along the table and then tilted her head to the side, brushing aside her hair, and inspected the surface of her neck. He flipped her head back over and did the same to the other side.

When his fingers didn't pull away, I glanced up at him. "She's clear, B." He nodded with a frown. "Can't be too sure."

I nodded speculatively, puffing on the joint still hanging halfway out of my mouth. "Who is she?"

Blade shrugged noncommittally. "Found her on a college campus. Night student probably. Took a walk through the park and ended up getting attacked." The way he spat the word made it clear that her attacker was no human.

"Suck heads?" I asked, leaning forward.

He nodded. "I almost didn't make it in time." He grabbed her wrist and pressed his fingers to the inside, testing her pulse. "Normal," he murmured. "Keep an eye on her, will you?" Without giving me any time to answer, he turned and walked briskly away.

I mock-saluted him. "Whatever you say, _captain_."

KORU'S POV:

My senses came back slowly, one at a time. Beneath me was a cold, hard table. In the distance, there was the clinking of metal, occassional coughing, a buzzing and popping, and the sound of someone singing to old cartoon theme songs. The air smelled metallic and smoky. The back of my throat tasted of blood. Through my shut eyelids, I could see yellowed light from far above.

I opened my eyes, pushing groggily up from the table. Where the hell was I? What had happened to me? I gazed around, looking for any sign of people. Had I been kidnapped?

All I could see was the faint blue illumination in the distance against a wall of metal. I had been forced to go into the shop in Ag class enough to know someone was welding over there.

I slipped off of the table I had been laying on, and stepped silently to the windowed wall where my backpack was rested. I pulled the pack on over my shoulders, in case I had to run, and snuck over to the cloud of blue-white light. I appeared to be inside a warehouse, parts of the wide open layout sectioned-off my hanging peices of crushed machinery and spare sheets of metal.

I peeked around the metal walls when the light stopped and the man behind the welding mask continued singing. "Scooby-dooby-doo!" He lifted the mask away from his face. I had assumed I was well-hidden enough simply because he hadn't said anything to me yet. I guess that the welding hood helped in large part with hiding me; the second his blue eyes were revealed, they met mine.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes," he announced cheerily.

I started to run, bolting the other direction, back toward where I came.

"Hey, what-" he shouted, his footsteps hastily retreating down another path. I had almost reached the table I was seated on earlier when he stepped out in front of me, securing my wrists within his hands.

I shrieked.

"Hey, hey!" he yelled over me. "Calm down! Jesus! We're just trying to help you!"

"Help me?!" I screamed. "Who the hell are you? Where am I?" I continued thrashing around in his grip as he explained.

"Don't you remember? Some guy attacked you and B saved you! You passed out, I guess and he brought you here."

A pale face flooded my memory, haunting me with those unnatural eyes. And then that man... he had saved me. "B?" I asked, finally still, though breathing heavily.

"Yeah, Blade the daywalker," the guy with his hands wrapped around my wrists shrugged, as though this name should mean something to me. "Guess he didn't get the chance to introduce himself while he was kicking vamp ass."

I shook my head in confusion. What the hell was this kid blabbering on about?

When I just stared uncomprehendingly at him, he released my hands with a "Sorry," and gestured for me to take a seat in one of the chairs scattered nearby. Only because I wanted answers and this guy didn't seem like much of a threat, I sat down.

He boosted himself up onto the edge of the table. "So what's your name?" he asked, scratching at the bandana wrapped around his head.

I frowned at him. Why on earth would I tell him my name?

After getting no answer, he pointed at himself. "Well, I'm Josh. You can call me Scud, though."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "What the hell kind of name is Scud?"

He feigned a wounded expression. "College nickname. Well, are you gonna tell me your name now?"

Sighing in annoyance, because I didn't seem to have much of a choice, I said, "Koru Davis."

"Koru, huh?" Scud mumbled, hopping off of the table and giving me a smug look. "That's an awful strange name, isn't it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Are you going to explain to me what is going on?"

"Well, I would, but I think it'd be better if you heard it from B. He's kinda the leader around here. I'm just the mechanic," he grumbled sourly. "He should be back sometime soon if you really want to stick around to hear the whole story." His eyes watched me, gauging my decision.

I needed the answers to these questions, and until I got them, it would be like an itch that I couldn't reach. So I crossed my legs and leaned back, my gaze on him unwavering. A slow smirk stretched across his face.

* * *

><p><strong>Hopefully you guys are liking my rewritten version of the story. In my opinion, it's more well-written and more realistic. I hope you guys feel the same way. Thank you for reading! :D Review! <strong>


	3. Nomak

JARED NOMAK'S POV:

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

The place smelled of urine and body odor. Likely most of the people flooding the blood bank were the lowest form of miscreant the Republic could produce.

The hood over my head proctected me from the flickering light of one of the broken signs on the walls. I was seated in a rickety set of benches, being eyeballed by every security guard and nurse that walked past, though I gave them no reason to stare. Perhaps it was my appearance beneath the hood; they knew something was wrong with the white palor of my skin, the scars on my chin, the look in my eyes.

I sighed self-pityingly as another person walked past with a scowl on their face for me.

A man in tattered green clothing with a ticket stub in his hand seated himself next to me. "First time giving blood?" he asked in a low voice, leaning over to me.

I covered my mouth to stifle a cough, but nodded. "Yes," I eventually rasped.

"They pay cash here," he continued with a gleam in his eye that told me he was in desperate need of money.

"And there's no limit to how many times you can give. They even buy it in the jar." He pulled a jar of thick goopy red liquid from within the folds of his clothing.

"Jared Nomak," came a stern, English woman's voice. "we're ready for you."

I stood, giving the man beside me a nod and a wave, then following the woman in the dark blue uniform down the hallway. I was escorted down a few levels, past where they normally took donors it would seem. Biohazard caution tape lined the metal doorways and within a few of the rooms, I could see what looked like torture devices.

The woman began speaking again, reading from her clipboard. "In the past 12 months, have you gotten a tattoo, or undergone any ear, skin, or body piercings?"

"No," I answered immediately.

"Where did you get that scar on your chin?" she asked, not meeting my eyes as she tapped her pen against her own chin.

I grimaced to myself. "Childhood accident." The words scratched at my throat and caused another round of coughs to wrench their way out of my mouth.

"You say you don't have any immediate next of kin, is that right?"

"Not that I'm in contact with."

"Nobody to call in case of an emergency?"

"No one." I took a glance to the side, into another of the rooms. Red liquid coated nearly every available surface, and a few people in plastic suits were cleaning it up. I told myself it wasn't blood, just to make myself continue walking.

"No family?" she continued.

Shakily, and a bit agitatedly, I answered, "I told you, no. Are you telling me I can't be a donor?"

As we approached the end of the hallway, a man behind one of the service desks stood and opened the door the woman in front of me was heading to.

"It depends," she murmured thoughtfully. "We came up with some unusual results on your blood test."

"What? How unusual?" I asked worriedly as she began punching a code in on a keypad for the door.

"Let me explain, your blood has a very rare phenotype, one we haven't encountered before." The room she led me into was empty other than one chair, with a single man standing beside it. The door clicked shut behind me, but the metal within sounded as though it had been locked.

"What? What are you talking about?"

The man who had opened the door for us came forward and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the chair, where I could see they had various pieces of medical equipment set up.

"Who are you? No," I tried to fight him back, but the coughing fits that wracked my body left me extremely weak.

"Sit down, please," the woman said as I continued to whimper in fright. There were bright white lights arranged in a sphere above the chair I was forced into.

"What is this?"

The two men grabbed either side of my shoulders as the woman stepped away to look me in the eye.

"This is a good news-bad news scenario, Jared," said the man to my left in a heavy accent. "Good news for us..." he shared a smile with the woman across from him, then pulled something over his hand. "Bad news for you." As he turned, I could see that he had pulled what looked like individual needle-tops over his fingers.

By this point, I was nearly in tears. What on earth could he be planning to do with those? The hoses connected to the needles on his fingertips were connected at the other end to a machine filled with blood. He flipped a switch that made the machine start humming.

My whimpers slowly began to turn into a laugh, low and ominous. I could feel the confusion radiating off of the three people in the room with me, as well as the splitting of my chin, halfway down my throat.

A growl ripped its way out of me as I launched myself off of the chair and grasped the woman by the neck. My teeth pierced the skin of her throat, sending a gush of blood upwards across the wall as she screamed.

The guard from the service desk pulled out his gun and fired four shots into my back. I turned, letting the woman's limp body drop to the ground, strode across the room and knocked him to the wall with a single swipe of my arm.

I spun and saw the other man, the one with the needles, quickly reentering the code to unlock the door. He turned just in time to watch as I grabbed him by the face. The look in his eyes brought a bloody smile to my face; you could see in them that he knew death was upon him.

"Vampires," I hissed in my native language, staring intently up at the security camera trained on my blood-stained face. "I hate vampires."

BLADE'S POV:

"Old man," I mumbled. "Look at what they've done to you."

My flashlight illuminated his frozen face through the thick, barely-transluscent blood. I opened the door to the pod-like cage he was floating in, releasing all of the liquids that had surrounded him. He hung forward, suspended only by the tubes still stuck within his body.

I slid the sword from the sheath on my back and sliced out at the tubes, letting his body fall to the ground. His eyes were still closed, but I wasn't sure I was comfortable enough with that to leave myself defenseless. I lightly fingered one of the silver stakes strapped to my thigh.

He drew in a shaky breath, his eyes opening. I immediately withdrew my hand from the stake, uncomfortable with the idea of killing Whistler. With his eyes opened, it was harder to tell myself he was the monster they may have turned him into. He was the only thing I had in the way of family. He closed his eyes again, body going slack once more.

"Let's go home," I breathed, hefting him over my shoulder.

SCUD'S POV:

I was suspended in air, being watched nervously by that Koru chick, when Blade's car pulled into the warehouse. I gazed downward, noting that Koru straightened in her seat as the car moved past. "Lock up your daughters, boys and girls," I muttered, lowering myself to the ground. "the Dark Knight returns."

Blade was at the trunk of his car, ignoring me and keeping his eyes from Koru (who had quietly walked over).

Lighting up another joint I had pulled from my bandana, I watched Blade. His features were drawn more tightly than usual, stress built in his stance. "Need a toke of the smokage, B?" I asked, holding the doobie out to him.

He fixed me with a look that I couldn't see beneath those sunglasses, though I'm sure incredulity was a good guess. "Later. Cut the lights."

I shrugged and turned around, glancing at Koru as I did so. She was standing awkwardly with her arms crossed over her chest, trying not to be noticed, though it was clear in the way she chewed her lip that she wanted to ask him what was going on. I shut the lights off as B opened up the trunk of his car. Koru's curiousity got the better of her and she stepped forward with me to peek into the trunk.

"You found him."

Koru gave me a confused look, then turned her eyes back on the shirtless old man with white hair and beard who was laid out along the bottom of the trunk.

I reached down to poke him in the shoulder. He inhaled sharply, eyes popping open, almost sitting up. Both Koru and I jumped, shocked by his mobility. "You didn't kill him," I accused half-heartedly.

Blade just watched me for a moment. "Give me a hand." Even if I didn't agree with his actions, Blade was the boss around here, and it made my stomach hurt to think about telling B no to his face.

"Stay here," I whispered to Koru as we passed her, Whistler carried between the two of us. We took him to a room with only a stool and some chains strung up on the walls and pillars, with a door meant to imprison someone. "I got a bad feeling about this, B," I grumbled, helping him shove Whistler down onto the stool. "Listen to his breathing. He's already dying. He's in pain. Why don't you just put him out of his misery right now?"

Blade began pulling things out of the inside of his coat. "They had him on stasis in a halfway house. I'm giving him an accelerated retro-viral detox." The thing he had pulled out of his coat had been a syringe, which he stuck into Whistler's arm, injecting him with the acccelerated retro-thingy. "Like a heroin addict," Blade continued explaining. "Make him go cold turkey in one night."

I shook my head, skeptical. "Shit ain't going to work, man. I say you kill the motherfucker right now."

Blade shoved the empty syringe into my chest, pushing me toward the door. "Get out."

I hesitantly took the syringe and left the room, realizing I had fucked up. "Dammit," I breathed. I was doing this all wrong. Blade was going to get suspicious if I kept acting like this. So I waited around outside the door for a few seconds until Blade came back out. "Hey. man, I didn't mean to call him-"

He held his hand up, silencing me. Without a word, he pointed in the direction of my workstation.

I bit down on my bruised ego and nodded.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, there's the third chapter, with only a tiny bit of insight into Scud's status as familiar. I hope you guys are enjoying it so far! :) Let me know what y'all think! Thanks for reading and reviewing! :D<strong>


	4. Scud as in Stud

KORU'S POV:

Scud returned after a few minutes, an annoyed look on his face. He didn't pay any attention to me as he got started hammering pieces of metal together.

Blade came in shortly after Scud, making a beeline to where I stood. "Follow me," were the only things he said before retreating up a set of metal stairs. He led me to a hallway with a few rooms branching off of it. He gestured for me to enter one of the rooms, the one at the end of the hall on the right.

"Forget what you think you know," he began in his naturally ominous voice. "Vampires are real."

Shock rippled through me. "What are you t-"

He silenced me with a wave of his hand. "If you want any explanations for what happened tonight, you're going to have to listen and not interrupt."

I shut my open mouth, nodding at him to continue.

"My name is Blade. They call me 'The Daywalker.' I was born half human, half vampire. I have all of their strengths, none of their weaknesses. Except for the Thirst."

I shfited uncomfortably; if this man really was half vampire, he could easily drink my blood and be done with me. But then, what had been the point of saving me? Were vampires territorial?

"Twenty years ago, I met a man who changed me. Whistler. He took me in. Taught me the rules. Gave me the weapons to hunt them with. Silver, garlic, and sunlight. Two years ago a vampire named Deacon Frost thought he could change the world, and bring vampires out as the alpha race. I killed him. He attacked Whistler, bit him. Since then, I've been travelling all over the world trying to find where they've been keeping him. That man in my trunk-"

"Was Whistler," I broke in.

He nodded.

"But why did they keep him and move him around?"

He whipped off his overcoat and draped it over the back of a chair. "Torture. They wanted information out of him."

"What kind of information?" I found myself asking, though I was frightened beyond all belief.

"They wanted to know where I was. There are a lot of vampires out there who want me dead."

"So what does any of this have to do with me?" I asked shakily, though I had a feeling I already knew.

"That man that attacked you earlier tonight," he glanced over his shoulder at me. "He was a vampire."

I surprised myself by nodding as though I had expected it. What other explanation was there for the insane things I had witnessed tonight? "What happens to me now?" I whispered, sure these guys wouldn't just leave people who knew too much wandering around.

He shrugged, seating himself on the edge of the one bed in the center of the room. "That's your decision. You can either go back to your college, go back to living your life... or you can stay with us and help us fight them."

I felt myself panicking. Help them? How could I help? I was just a computer engineering major at a fancy school in Prague that I only got into because of outrageous amounts of scholarships.

"But I should warn you," he continued, taking his glasses off for the first time. His eyes were the same hazel as that man (_vampire_, I forced myself to think, _at least call that thing by its name.)_ "If you do go back to the college, things will never be the same for you. Vampires will know you've been exposed to their world. They will target you and you will be in near-constant danger."

I lifted a weak hand to my forehead. "What choice do I have? It sounds like the only way I stay alive is if I join you guys. And even then you can't guaruntee that I'll live."

He gave a slight nod. "If you want to look at it that way."

"So, what- I just drop out of college, give up on everything and come join the vampire hunters?" I gave a hysterical little laugh.

"I understand this is a big decision for you," Blade spoke in his customary monotone. "But it would be helpful if you made your decision quickly."

I ran a hand over my face. What did I have in my life anyway? I had been orphaned at age 2, so I had no family. I didn't have many friends, just the few people I could tolerate speaking to in class. Really, my grades were average and I was running out of money to pay my tuition.

Besides, if I went back to what now seemed like a very empty life, there was a strong chance I would be getting stalked by vampires. Sure I ran the risk of meeting up with them while helping Blade, but I would much rather be near him when the carnivores came knocking.

"Okay," I nodded. "I'm in."

WHISTLER'S POV:

THE NEXT MORNING:

"How'd you find me?" I asked, drying my hands off on a towel.

"Started off in Moscow," Blade related. "Then Romania. They kept moving you around."

"How long was I gone?"

He hesitated in answering, so I looked up him. He was gazing down at the ground with a scowl.

"Months?"

"Too long." He slid his sunglasses on over his eyes and walked past me.

"Years," I nodded to myself, shutting the water in the sink off. I finished cleaning myself up and exited to find Blade standing in the hallway, a young girl standing next to him.

"Whistler," Blade called to me. "This is Koru. She was attacked last night. She's our newest recruit."

I walked closer, a frown on my face. "More strays?"

The girl turned and I staggered, stunned. She looked just like my daughter. High cheekbones, with pale skin dotted with freckles, impossibly long black hair. She was a bit older than my youngster had been, but she resembled her so startlingly, right down to the hazel eyes and thick lashes. Confused, I met Blade's eyes over her shoulder. He held my gaze steadily. That was why he had saved her and brought her back. He recognized her features from the picture of my daughter I had shown him years and years before.

"Hi," she said, smiling and holding her hand out, calling me back to reality.

Shocked beyond speaking, I shook her hand.

"Whistler, right?" she asked when I didn't speak.

I cleared my throat and released her hand. "Uh, yeah. I'm Whistler."

She nodded. "I've heard a lot about you."

The girl's smile, just the same as my daughter's had been, reminded me of my life... the one the vampires had ripped away from me. My daughters, my wife... "My ring," I blurted, grabbing at my left hand and feeling for my wedding band.

"Come with me," Blade spoke.

The girl, Koru, followed us.

My ring was taped behind an old junky machine from the 70s.

"They torutred me almost to death," I grumbled to Blade as I ripped the tape with my ring off the machine. "And then left me to heal in a vat of blood so they could go at it again. Sorry sons of bitches could've at least fixed my goddamned leg while they were at it." I stood, the metal brace on my left leg creaking. "Where's my arc welder?" I asked, looking around.

Blade raised his eyebrows then nodded his head in the direction of a blue glow through the doorway.

A young guy with long, dark hair was welding on a big hunk of metal, an unlit joint beneath the welding hood he pulled away from his face. He turned the welding handle toward himself, using the end of the stick to light the drugs hanging from his lips. He straightened up upon seeing the three of us enter the room, tossing the welder down onto the metal bulge.

"What's up, Whistler? Nice to meet you, man. Heard a lot about you," he sent a wave over my shoulder to Koru. "Good morning, sunshine. Good to see you're on the team." After giving her a wink, he turned his attention back to me. "I'm Josh. You can call me Scud, though, everyone does."

I turned to give Blade a dry look before following after him as he walked through various hulking metallic projects. We caught up to him to see that he was watching cartoons on a tiny monitor, toying with the joint in his mouth.

I lifted the plastic over what looked like a motor vehicle in the making. "Tell me something, Skid-"

Koru snorted behind me, holding in laughter.

Scud glanced at her blandly, a slight bitter tightness near the corners of his mouth. "No, man, it's Scud. Like 'stud'. Scud."

"Whatever. What are you doing here?" I nodded beneath the sheet of plastic.

"The pimpmobile?" he asked, waving dismissively at it, though he was trying not to look too pleased with himself. "Just a little aftermarket modification. Nitrous oxide. Shit like that."

"Oh yeah," Koru chuckled, stepping up beside me and looking over it. "You gave it a more aggressive exhaust profile ramping."

Blade, Scud, and I all looked down at her in amazement. "I like her," I mumbled under my breath to Blade.

"Yeah," Scud said, smiling a little at her and stepping closer. "The whole package will crank that Betty up, maybe 300 horsepower."

I watch with a frown as Koru smiled back. Though she appeared less than impressed with him, I knew how quickly that could change, and she looked enough like my daughter that the way that sleaze-bag was watching her worried me.

"And you'll burn the damn thing out before your next oil change," I scolded him. "Where'd you dig up this shitbird, anyway?" I asked Blade, who merely shook his head.

"What the fuck is your problem, Poppy?" Scud asked, slapping an arm into my chest as he walked by.

I chased after him, berating him the whole way. "My problem is I've been sucking blood clots for two years and I get out to find some jerkoff fucking with my life's work."

Backing up defensively, Scud barked, "We jeopardized our whole operation to save your puckered old ass!"

"_Our _operation?" I yelled over him.

"Yeah," he nodded indignantly.

"Our operation? I built this operation, you ass-wipe!" I grabbed him by the jacket threateningly. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Blade hold a hand up to keep Koru from jumping toward us. I threw him forward, disgusted.

We were all distracted suddenly by the blaring of an alarm.

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><p><strong>I've got some big ideas for this fic, but I may have to stretch out the time frame of the movie :P I'm sure you guys won't mind. Thank you for reading and reviewing! Go ahead and do that some more ;) <strong>


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